Hughes
By Pradman Kaul, President
I
am pleased to report that Hughes had a strong 2014, with growing
revenues and healthy margins in our businesses and markets all
over the world. A landmark event that we’re very proud of is
crossing the one million mark of active users for our HughesNet® highspeed satellite Internet service in North America.
In the enterprise arena, our portfolio of HughesON™ Managed Network
Solutions has been well received by the market, as evidenced by major
wins and expansions, such as Delhaize (Food Lion), Springleaf Financial,
and GTECH, the U.S.’s largest lottery provider, which extended its service
agreement with us through September 2022, including space segment, hub
operations, and maintenance for over 100,000 sites. We also expanded the
scope of numerous contracts within our franchise-oriented markets, one
of the largest being with Yum! brands (KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut). On the
technology front, we introduced the award winning HR4400 Branch Gateway,
a single cost-effective device that combines strong security, routing, and
Hughes’ unique Active Technologies for multi-branch organizations.
the past, residents had to travel to the nearest
city with a branch bank to conduct banking
transactions. In addition, Hughes India has
more than 50,000 VSAT sites in operation.
Hughes Europe was selected by Smiggle for a comprehensive HughesON
Managed Network Solution that includes wireless backup to support
the Australian retailer’s U.K. Launch. In the Middle East, we won a $69
million contract for a global foreign ministry satellite network spanning six
continents and 100 countries. In Colombia, we were selected by Hispasat
and Anditel to provide high-speed Internet services to rural schools and
communities under the Vive Digital program.
In the aeronautical world, Hughes partnered with Global Eagle Entertainment
to provide a complete satellite broadband communications solution that
underpins their inflight systems, including hub service and leased space
segment. Beyond services in the U.S., Europe, and Russia, this year the
business was expanded into the Asia Pacific region with Thaicom Public
On the international front, our service companies in Brazil, India, and Company Limited (Thaicom), a leading satellite communications provider,
Europe had a great year.
now supporting in-flight services to airlines in Thailand and Southeast Asia.
Our Brazilian subsidiary signed a contract extension with Telemar for the
provision of broadband services for approximately 3,200 sites, while our
Indian subsidiary continued to expand its rural bank and ATM network,
where we now have over 10,000 sites in service. This is a major project
that connects rural locations to the national banking network, whereas in
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One of our strategic objectives over the past few years has been to offer our
customers the same technology platform all over the world, whether the
operation is over Ka-, Ku- or C-band satellites. This means that the ground
system control and management infrastructure and customer terminals are
based on the same core technology building blocks, offering significant
SatMagazine—December 2014
Hughes’ Germantown Network Operations Center (NOC).
R&D advantages and efficiencies and the ability to converge legacy
platforms and new applications. Witness our JUPITER™ high-throughput
technology. Employing a novel System on a Chip (SoC) and numerous other
advancements—including an enhanced air interface and wideband carriers
that can transmit over 1Gbps—JUPITER’s modular design is the ideal,
future-proof platform for operators to gain technology and cost advantages
on today’s conventional satellites and be well positioned for migration to
next-generation High Throughput Satellites (HTS).
Clearly, the industry is recognizing the value in our strategy—I’m delighted
to report that we were awarded the 2014 Technology Innovation of the Year
at VSAT 2014 for the JUPITER System.
In Turkey, we recently were awarded a contract by Turksat for a JUPITER
ground system to operate over that country’s new Ka-band satellite. We
also won a contract in Mexico to deploy a JUPITER system in Ku-band
to provide broadband connectivity for more than 5,000 schools and
community centers.
All in all, 2014 validated why I am extremely bullish about the continued
growth of all our business segments, as our continuing investments in new
technology and services yield ever higher speeds, lower cost per bit and
more applications and benefits for our customers.
Looking ahead, we are on track for the launch in the first half of 2016 of our
next-generation HTS, JUPITER 2/EchoStar XIX. With more than 150Gbps
throughput, this new Ka-band satellite will have 50 percent greater capacity
than JUPITER 1/EchoStar XVII. Building on the success of EchoStar XVII, the
new satellite is being designed with an advanced architecture possessing
In addition to powering our HughesNet service in North America, the more than 120 spot beams, powering expansion of high-quality HughesNet
JUPITER platform has now been selected by operators in Latin America, Gen4 Internet services across the U.S. and major parts of Canada and
Russia, Canada, Mexico, Malaysia, and the Middle East. This year, we Central America.
captured some exciting new projects. For example, in Russia, we signed
contracts to supply the gateway infrastructure for the RSCC AM5 Ka-band Xplornet Communications, Canada’s largest rural broadband provider, has
satellite. This is a first-of-its-kind network, delivering affordable satellite committed to a lifetime lease for all of the Canadian satellite broadband
broadband services for the eastern part of Russia, and puts us in good capacity on JUPITER 2/EchoStar XIX, including the gateways necessary to
position for future planned expansions across the entire country.
support the service.
Leadership in both technology and service delivery sets Hughes apart and
is the key to our success—this is how I see the future.
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